Any theory basing either moral obligation in general, or the duty of political obedience, or the justice of social institutions, on a contract, usually called a ‘social contract’.
The idea goes back at least as far as Plato’s Crito (c.395 BC), and contractualists (or contractarians) have also included Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704), Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), and various modern writers.
The contract may be an allegedly historical one or a tacitly implied one, or an imaginary one. It may be between people who set up a sovereign, or between the people and the sovereign, or between the individual and society or the state, or between hypothetical beings in a setting making for impartiality.
Source:
J Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1972)
Table of Contents
- 1 Videos
- 2 Related Products
- 2.1 Contractarianism / Contractualism
- 2.2 Contractualism (Elements in Ethics)
- 2.3 Contractualism and the Foundations of Morality
- 2.4 Contractualism in Employment Services: A New Form of Welfare State Governance (Studies in Employment and Social Policy Set)
- 2.5 Theological Concepts and Political Studies: The Morality of Personalism and Contractualism
- 2.6 Scanlon and Contractualism
- 2.7 New Contractualism in European Welfare State Policies
- 2.8 Kant and Parfit: The Groundwork of Morals (Routledge Studies in Ethics and Moral Theory)
- 2.9 The Ethics of Eating Animals: Usually Bad, Sometimes Wrong, Often Permissible (Routledge Research in Applied Ethics)
- 2.10 General Will in Political Philosophy (British Idealist Studies)
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